Critkin is the way to go, honestly cannot see how Mastery is ever gonna be better than crit in any situation. Even on a 100% stand still fight (Which doesnt exist in Siege of Orgrimmar). I did try both builds in 5.4 PTR and the low amounts of Starsurges you get especially after they nerfed our 4p is not worth it.

Instead of all these "theories" why don't you use a farm boss and 1 week use full crit and the next week use full mastery and see which gives you better numbers?

Biggest issue with that is numbers are going to vary drastically if your bindings didn't proc asap or you got a ton of totem procs. It's still a very good idea for farm because you can test the "feel" or practically of getting fewer ss procs. Essentially will feel like poo on high movement fights and even more poo w/ less SS procs during cds or when you have to refresh dots more often, especially when your super strong CA dots get extended less.

Originally Posted by Stabb

Critkin is the way to go, honestly cannot see how Mastery is ever gonna be better than crit in any situation. Even on a 100% stand still fight (Which doesnt exist in Siege of Orgrimmar). I did try both builds in 5.4 PTR and the low amounts of Starsurges you get especially after they nerfed our 4p is not worth it.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. I'd even strongly question mastery's weight in Wrathcalcs and AMR atm. The BiS list has proven useful at times, but personally have strayed from it when farm gearing because I completely disagreed with a trinket or armor piece. This tier, and even last the lack of trust from Wrathcalcs becomes stronger and stronger as it fails to accurately portray movement, individual encounters, and the fact that a lot of the work is being done by a guy that has played resto for majority of the expansion iirc.

I know Slippy has another sort of list, but in the future I believe a sort of upgrade list exclusively would be best for the community. In WoD especially BiS is likely to be impossible so perhaps so ways we all look at gearing should change.

nobody states that mastery is better then crit, it is Crit > mastery > more haste,the important thing here is, the moment you crit, it doens't matter if you had 1% or 100% crit chance, the crit doesn't increase dps, as it's already a crit, now before someone goes butthurt over me typing 1% ofc, i don't say you should go retard and go low crit now. The point is just that the moment where you feel, you are already critting a lot, i tried situations where i didn't do anything else then spamming Starsurge. and this is between 40-45% then you will realize getting a bit more crit might be good in a long fight, but if you have way more crit rating then what you require, then can't see how that is a dps gain, remember if shooting star procs 2 times in row, without you managed to throw a Starsurge, since 1 sec global cooldown, then it's a dps loss.

and this is here where mastery kicks in. If mastery is useless, then why do you use the normal rotation? since mastery increases the amount of eclipse dmg you are doing. I only use solar opener on klaxxi/dark shamans/protectors. where on other encounters lunar opener is better since i can keep eclipse up 4 times in row before going to a standard rotation, where mastery gives me a huge dps boost.

and the thing with you can't move in SoO is a lie, You do stand still on garrosh, you do stand still on siegecrafter, sometimes dodge but there are still moments where you do stand still, Nazgrim if you position yourself well, you do stand still, Spoils you do sometimes stand still, as a boomkin on thok, you do stand still with symbiosis on warlock, Immerseus, after first phase you do stand still

dark shamans you do standstill, since it's a cookie cutter as ranged dps. you move once 10-15 sec

and i am talking about heroic encounter here, even on malkarok you stand still.

People aren't saying mastery is useless. At 10.3k haste, mastery is our second best secondary.

However, it's still only second behind crit. Feel all you like, hard facts say crit is a bigger DPS gain on average.

The sun looks like it falls into the sea every evening, yet i've never seen it boil the water. Does that mean the sun is colder than 100° C?
No, of course not. It's just an optical illusion.

Not saying I agree with either side because at the moment it is all just theories but you don't seem to understand what you're actually talking about. Stating that Mastery is the second best secondary stat not including haste is just a random statement that holds no bearing as to the weight of any stat. There are no facts saying crit is a bigger DPS gain, there is evidence supporting it but that evidence is not very solid, being that a) the number of people trying to put Mastery into their gear are few in numbers, meaning they are subject to heavy RNG, b) if all the top players choose to stick with crit then they are still the top players and parses will be heavily biased towards a crit build, and c) Wrathcalcs is hugely inaccurate for any sort of realistic situation. I also have no idea what you're talking about about that sun thing, when did optical illusions come into this. If anything what you said supports the theory that Mastery could be better since even though it looks like Crit is better (see a and b above) it may not be.

Originally Posted by huth

Theoretical means there's a solid body of proof for it. I.e. people tried it and it worked. Repeatedly.

No. A theory is a theory, an idea or explanation about a specific way of thinking. If there was solid proof behind something it would be a fact.

Honestly it doesn't seem too far fetched to think that adding a bit of Mastery to your gear could be in increase. Once you reach the high levels of crit 17k+ you'll feel the extra starsurge procs less and less and simplying moving 1-2k crit into a flat %increase to your Eclipse damage could be of benefit.

In addition to all Glurp said, just because someone puts in hard work and cranks out some numbers that resemble closely what we experience in practice, does not mean it is fact. It is only the closest thing to fact that we have to work with. It's still all theoretical though; it's mostly all generalizations. Mastery and Crit become very close with regards to actual damage gain, especially with the amp trinket (mastery gets whole benefit, crit only partial --as it refers to boomkins--).

Mastery and Crit become very close with regards to actual damage gain, especially with the amp trinket (mastery gets whole benefit, crit only partial --as it refers to boomkins--).

Hate getting involved in this petty argument, but you cant just state this without any evidence to back it up. Heck i can say that haste = mastery because i like the colour yellow, it doesnt mean anything without numbers and calculations or a string of logs that give good comparisons to draw even some basis for conclusion.

And why are people even arguing this, if you think mastery is better or equal, go gem it, go try it and bring the conclusions here with evidence.

Also hate to break it to you all but every fact is a theory which is yet to be disproven, at one point it was a general consensus that the earth was the centre of the galaxy because we could see everything in the sky move around us, they considered it to be a fact until it was later disproven and a new theory was backed up with evidence.

Anyways this entire debate you guys are having is pointless. If you disagree with simcraft and wrathcalcs then the only other way to draw a decisive conclusion would be to analyse a huge number of logs, which isnt going to happen any time soon.

Edit: Just to clarify before the above posters whine at me, i dont think there is any Stat > Stat for an entire raid, boss by boss and raid starategy among others things would actually be a more determining factor and you may find another stat overtakes with this in mind on a certain fight. But like slippy said a long time back the difference is so small compared with trinket procs lining up with cooldowns, movement, procs, timing of eclipses etc. There are too many things that affect deeps more than the crit mastery argument, most players have just realised that using crit mitigates the loss in some of these bad situations and also maximises the gain the good ones. Mastery doesnt have the same benefit in my eyes and experience.

Set AMR to 45% soft crit cap, input results into Wrathcalcs and mastery comes out ahead. The higher the soft cap is increased, the more Mastery is worth than Crit. Incidentally this will appear at around 15k crit rating at much higher gear levels.. for me at around 16.5k (571 ilvl) --as a note, crit stack without a soft cap nets me a little over 18.5k rating--

@Ragingblaze - You're essentially arguing the same thing as me. Because nothing is "proven". Just as it was the earth was previously round. I remember in early ToT when people thought crit>haste even when reaching the next tick. Also of course it's petty, it's a forum.. all "arguments" are petty. The intent is purely that nothing is set in stone solid proof. Stats affect each other, some more than others and, at some point, mastery becomes better than crit on paper. Even the creators of Wrathcalcs know the thing isn't perfect.. because it isn't meant to be. The only people arguing to that end are those who revere it as holy scripture and don't understand stat relationships nearly as much or even the models that simcraft and/or wrathcalcs use.

Set AMR to 45% soft crit cap, input results into Wrathcalcs and mastery comes out ahead. The higher the soft cap is increased, the more Mastery is worth than Crit. Incidentally this will appear at around 15k crit rating at much higher gear levels.. for me at around 16.5k (571 ilvl) --as a note, crit stack without a soft cap nets me a little over 18.5k rating--

@Ragingblaze - You're essentially arguing the same thing as me. Because nothing is "proven". Just as it was the earth was previously round. I remember in early ToT when people thought crit>haste even when reaching the next tick. Also of course it's petty, it's a forum.. all "arguments" are petty. The intent is purely that nothing is set in stone solid proof. Stats affect each other, some more than others and, at some point, mastery becomes better than crit on paper. Even the creators of Wrathcalcs know the thing isn't perfect.. because it isn't meant to be. The only people arguing to that end are those who revere it as holy scripture and don't understand stat relationships nearly as much or even the models that simcraft and/or wrathcalcs use.

I've read enough of this babble by now. The only reason mastery comes out even close to begin with is b/c Wrathcalcs and Simcraft are modelling standstill situations. If you're progressing for Fallen Protectors, like the other guy said, go ahead and reforge a bit more mastery, but none of the fights it really matters is mastery worth it. I really wish someone would make a better program than Simcraft or the Hamlet dude would play balance for once this Xpac and update his program. Neither modelling tool is close to accurate and reaching a point where it's becoming more reliable to just understand what stat does what and allocate them according.

Yeah I don't think it will be possible to have a completely accurate tool though is the sad thing.. what we have with Wrathcalcs is good as a base IMHO for patchwerk fights.. gives a good point to start an analysis.

Yeah I don't think it will be possible to have a completely accurate tool though is the sad thing.. what we have with Wrathcalcs is good as a base IMHO for patchwerk fights.. gives a good point to start an analysis.

Wrathcalcs isn't even any good unless you're simulating at 30 minute fight. It works on averages and compltetly ignores any sort of CD/proc stacking benefits. On the other hand there is something up with Simcraft because the numbers it says Boomkins should be doing are retardedly high without winning the trinket proc lottery.

Play the game fight by fight, i remember imperial vizier zor'lok back in HoF on heroic progression very early on in the expansion, boomkins that did the top damage dropped the 5kwhatever haste BP and literally ran with no haste but pure crit at the low gear levels.

If your looking at world of logs its practically a lie, as i stated before the dps you deal depends on many other things much much more, i ranked 4th on Durumu 25 HC last tier and thats by dieing and taking a second hero with inc doc up for walls.

Wrathcalcs isn't even any good unless you're simulating at 30 minute fight. It works on averages and compltetly ignores any sort of CD/proc stacking benefits. On the other hand there is something up with Simcraft because the numbers it says Boomkins should be doing are retardedly high without winning the trinket proc lottery.

More accurately a 0 modulus 3 minute average, since our CD's are on per 3 min... but yes the calculations are based on an 'infinite' time length.. I care more about relations anyway as opposed to pure dps numbers.

More accurately a 0 modulus 3 minute average, since our CD's are on per 3 min... but yes the calculations are based on an 'infinite' time length.. I care more about relations anyway as opposed to pure dps numbers.

They also sim brainlessly popping Incarnation exactly every 3 minutes rather than waiting for an ICD so that just compounds how trash it is

They also sim brainlessly popping Incarnation exactly every 3 minutes rather than waiting for an ICD so that just compounds how trash it is

In the end though, you most likely will use your cooldowns when the are available except for the last ones and situations where the mechanics require you to save them. Very rarely (if ever) you know 4 minutes in advance that you'll get 2 more cooldowns in the fight.